


Hall of the Slain

by Shiny_n_new



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, suprisingly little angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:30:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiny_n_new/pseuds/Shiny_n_new
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark was dead. Surprisingly, he wasn't that bummed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hall of the Slain

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little ficlet I wrote while thinking about death and the afterlife in the MCU.

Tony had never figured he’d live long enough to think, _‘I’m getting too old for this.’_ Back before the Avengers, before the suit, before Pepper, Tony had assumed his end would come sooner rather than later and that he’d probably deserve it. He’d envisioned dying alone in his living room from alcohol poisoning, or his heart giving out from a bad gram of coke, or even a fiery explosion in his lab that would burn away all the traces of him. He’d never have imagined he’d hit thirty, let alone forty, let alone old enough to start wondering if it was time to hang up his helmet.

But he was getting too old for this. Before, when he’d been younger, he could dodge and weave effortlessly through bullets and missiles and walk away without a scratch. But now he wasn’t quite that spry, and no amount of modifications to the suit could fix those squishy biological nuisances that came with age. If he’d been younger, he could have dodged in time.

Instead, he had a hole the size of a fist through his torso. Not a small fist, either. The kind of fist he tried to avoid getting hit by because it was all muscles and heavy bone. 

Strange, the things skittering through his mind while he bled to death. Tony would have smiled, but his mouth was locked into a grimace that he couldn’t get rid of. Every time he breathed in, he could feel new stabs of pain shooting through him.

He could see the edge of the arc reactor poking out of his skin, if he angled his head down far enough to look. The sight made his stomach turn, and he was pretty sure he’d choke on his own vomit if he threw up, so he kept his eyes to the sky.

Steve was above him, saying something, but Tony couldn’t really focus on the words. Dying _hurt_. The movies had lied to him. He wanted to write a letter of complaint. Maybe he could do it as a ghost. And that ghost thing was going to happen very soon, because he could feel his awareness going fuzzy and faded.

“I’ll miss ya, big guy,” Tony slurred out, unable to stop clenching his teeth. He managed something that hopefully looked like a smile. God, but Steve looked so _sad_. “Better not let the world end now that I’m not here to kick you in the ass.”

Steve kept talking, shaking his head and staring down at Tony with those painfully earnest eyes he was so good at. He was crying. Tony wrapped his hand around Steve’s arm and squeezed gently. 

“Thanks for caring,” Tony said, and there was a burning at the back of his eyes that had nothing to do with the pain. “In spite of everything.”

There was more to say (good God, there was so much more to say), but there was no pushing a machine past what it was physically able to give. It was the same way with people. Everything seemed to slow, and then get dark, and then Steve Rogers was crouching over the body of what used to be Tony Stark.

Tony Stark, meanwhile, was opening his eyes to bright, shining gold.

The color was _everywhere_ , like someone had melted down Fort Knox and used it to decorate. He squinted up at it, wondering if he had seriously made it up into Heaven. Were they not doing background checks anymore?

Then Thor’s big golden head moved into his line of vision, and Tony broke into a wide smile.

“Are you well, Man of Iron?” Thor asked, his expression surprisingly downcast. Tony wanted to ask, yikes, who died?

Then he remembered that _he_ did.

“Where am I?” he asked, staring up at Thor.

“Valhalla,” Thor said, with a tone of reverence that seemed almost out of place for someone so boisterous. “The halls of the honored dead.”

Tony didn’t know how to ask all the questions in his mind, didn’t even know if he could find the words to start. Thor seemed to understand.

“You never expressed any preference for an afterlife, or a patron god,” Thor said, and if Tony hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the big guy was bashful. “I did not know where you would go, then, when death found you. And since I could not save you in life, I thought…”

“Thought you’d give me an afterlife,” Tony finished, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He looked down to find that his arc reactor still glowed gently from his chest. But nothing else hurt. Not his chest, not his head, not the spot where he’d had a hole punched through him. He hadn’t felt so good since he’d been a kid.

“Battle scars that warriors particularly treasure, ones from battles that defined them, often stay even when all other injuries fade,” Thor explained. Even just sitting next to Tony, he was huge. Larger than life. It was wrong to see him so subdued.

“Why the long face, Thunderjam?” Tony asked, smiling. It was hard to feel sad when everything that had scared him felt so far away. He knew there would be time for grief, for missing Pepper and Rhodey and all the people he loved. But right then all he could feel was joy, like he was staring at lab full of parts that he could make into anything. Endless possibilities.

“I did not ask you if you wanted this,” Thor said, his voice as serious as Tony had ever heard it. “But I have seen too many of my Midgardian friends go where I cannot follow. You have saved Asgard and the Nine Realms enough times that my parents saw fit to grant you passage into these halls. But if you do not want this, if you would rather pass on to whatever awaits you, I will escort you myself. You are my friend, despite all the times we have quarreled and disagreed. I would never want to take such a choice away from you-”

“Hey,” Tony said, interrupting Thor. “Hey. I wasn’t getting past the Pearly Gates anyway. I’m not on the angelic guest list. And why would I want to be, when all the good musicians are somewhere else?”

Thor didn’t look like he completely understood what Tony was saying, but that was par for the course. He got the gist of it, though, and smiled hugely. 

“Now, about that Bifrost thing,” Tony said, stepping out of the bed gingerly. His knees didn’t pop and his back didn’t protest. “Who built it?”

“A consortium of smiths from ages past,” Thor said, falling into step next to Tony as he walked to the window. “It is considered one of the finest pieces of craftsmanship in all the realms.”

Tony cracked his knuckles. “Bet I can build a better version.”

Thor laughed, the sound accompanied by a distant crack of thunder. “Yes, I think that you can.”


End file.
